Book Launches

To tell you the truth, I don't know what other people do. I might have seen a book launch or two where the author serves a cake or it's a cocktail party sort of an affair. But no. Not me. I always wanted my book launches to have the same dramatic flair as my books, and get the reader in the mood.

And I think I did that adequately when I launched the fifth book in my medieval mystery series, BLOOD LANCE, on October 20th. Since my books are set in the middle ages, the first order of business was to make sure I served medieval food. Now I'm not talking a full course dinner, but more like medieval munchies, finger food, but something that wouldn't look unfamiliar on an English medieval table. And so I serve figs and olives and grapes. And cheese. Lots of cheese. Along with small bits of toast (i.e. crackers) to go with it. But any medieval table involves meat, and so that's there, too. Salami, and pork tenderloin stuffed with prunes.

Westerson-made mead.

Libations are in order, and along with the decidedly not medieval champagne (we have to make some concessions), we also serve my husband's award-winning homemade mead. It was a real hit, I can tell you. Many people have never had mead and my hubby knows how to brew it. It beat the champagne hands down, as a matter of fact.

Food helps to conjure the right atmosphere, but there is nothing like a little entertainment to get the ball rolling. In previous years I had the help of a cousin who plays a Celtic harp. But along with that, I always have my knights. Armored fellows who take time away from their other knightly duties to add verisimilitude to the proceedings by dueling and offering me and my guests a chance to get medieval on things.

And then I did a reading, and to accompany that, a brief Power Point presentation on the Origins of Knighthood with pictures of yours truly all armored up for the sake of research.

It's an unusual knight...er...night. When I did it for my first book, VEIL OF LIES, five years ago, the folks at Vroman's bookstore--the oldest continuously running indie bookstore in America--said they'd never seen a launch like that. And I don't feel I can disappoint.

But sometimes...sometimes I wish I just served cake.




  

Knights With PTSD?

With our young soldiers marching off to war all around us and returning home with not only visible injuries, but the many you can’t see, I began to consider Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, as it was viewed in the past. And it became a pivotal plot point in my upcoming book BLOOD LANCE, my medieval mystery with protagonist Crispin Guest, a disgraced knight turned detective in fourteenth century London. A knight from Crispin’s chivalric past, Sir Thomas Saunfayl, pulls Crispin into his difficulties that are quickly spiraling out of control. Sir Thomas is accused of desertion and must fight for his life in a judicial joust. Desperate to ensure his victory, he has paid a fortune to lay his hands on the Spear of Longinus, a religious relic he believes will give him invincibility on the lists, and he hires Crispin to find it.

The idea of knights possibly suffering from PTSD fascinated me. I wondered if throughout history, in the days before modern artillery, combatants suffered from it. After all, it is a malady that manifests once a soldier returns home to “normal” life, and many soldiers and knights were away from home for years and years. Even though there is little in the way of discussion about it in old documents because of the cultural and sociological differences between then and now, I didn’t suppose it was a modern phenomenon, though we have given it fancy modern names.

In World War I, they talked of being “shell shocked” from the nature of the new style of warfare where soldiers huddled in trenches while being barraged by exploding shells. By World War II it was called “battle fatigue.” General Patton famously slapped a soldier suffering from this. “Battlefield stress” is yet another term.

Battle of Courtrai

But in the Middle Ages it could only be recognized as a failure on the part of the soldier and labeled as cowardice. Interestingly enough, some parchment was given to the problem of cowardice. The idea--then as now--was to train the soldier so thoroughly that the “flight” part of the natural “fight or flight” response would be eliminated. Drill, discipline, and group bonding went a long way toward shaping the mind (though the medieval foot soldier wasn’t drilled in the sense of practicing formations, not like their ancient ancestors in Greece or Rome. It was an impracticality. They had to rely on the discipline of the knights, those in the front lines, to form strategies for the foot soldiers to follow. However, infantry was able to save the day over the mounted knight many a time, including in the battle of Courtrai in 1302 and Bannockburn in 1314).

Instilling a greater fear in one’s commander than in the enemy also proved optimal. In ancient China, for example, generals would maneuver their armies in such a way as to make retreat impossible thus forcing the advance as the only option. Religious fervor, too, offered a standard under which one could fight while also offering ultimate rewards if death should strike.

There was a reason for rallying the troops before a battle with a stirring speech. From ancient Greece and probably before, generals and kings gave battle orations meant to bond, to encourage, and to remind the men of their reasons for fighting and for their ultimate rewards if they succeeded. Think of the St. Crispin's Day speech in Shakespeare’s Henry V. I don’t know about you, but it makes me want to take up arms!

Combined, this is what made up the “band of brothers,” where even the general or, in some instances, the castellan of a fortress, feels close to his men in a way that defies the social classes.

Still, even with all this training and discipline, with the subsequent shame in society associated with cowardice, there were certainly soldiers and knights who succumbed to the rigors of war. A knight on a horse could flee a lot easier than a man on the ground, and there were instances where generals insisted the knights dismount in order to make fleeing more difficult. Early flight of the knights lost many a battle, including King Stephen’s battle at Lincoln and Robert Curthose’s battle at Tinchebrai. Are these instances of cowardice as we might understand it, or of a man cutting his losses and getting the heck out of there?

Battle stress manifests itself in running away in the face of battle, sleeplessness, irritability, irrational anger, mood swings, and thoughts of suicide. Sir Thomas in this piece suffers from these symptoms and can’t understand why. All his training and discipline failed him in the face of the constant barrage of the battle royale. What’s a knight to do? As he said, they can’t all be Crispin Guests.

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My new medieval mystery BLOOD LANCE will be released Oct 16 in hardcover, e-book, and audiobook. See a series book trailer and discussion guides for all my books at www.JeriWesterson.com 

Deadly Daughters Summer Give-Away

Drum roll, please! And the winners are:

Winner of Bleeding Through: Lauren K
Send mailing address to Sandy at sandraparshall@yahoo.com

Winner of Outrageous Older Woman and Shifting is for the Goyim: Dru Ann Love
Liz will be in touch.

Winners of The Ghosts of Lovely Women: Penny T, Warren Bull, Lelia Taylor
Contact Julia at julishka@sbcglobal.net

Winner of Sour Apples: Nora
Send mailing addresses to Sheila at sheila328@aol.com

Winner of Troubled Bones: Giovanni Albers
Send mailing address to Jeri at jeriwesterson@gmail.com

Winner of Missing, Presumed Wed: judydee
Send mailing address to Sharon at cml@wildwindauthor.com

Thanks to everyone who entered the drawing!

We love our readers, and we appreciate your taking a few minutes out of your day to stop by our blog. To thank you, we're having a drawing for free books, downloads and music. Check out what's on offer, then leave a comment telling us what you'd like to win. We'll post the names of the winners here no later than Thursday afternoon. You'll have to give us your e-mail or snail-mail address to receive your prize, so be sure to check back tomorrow and find out whether you're a winner.

Sandra Parshall

I'm giving away a signed hardcover copy of my September release, Bleeding Through, the fifth book in the Rachel Goddard mystery/suspense series. As Tom Bridger works to solve the murder of a young law student, Rachel comes face to face with her hidden past, and both she and her sister Michelle must accept the truth about who they are and what happened to them as children. Kirkus Reviews praised Bleeding Through, saying that it "combines nerve-wracking suspense with a twisty mystery."

Elizabeth Zelvin

 

I'm straying off the straight and narrow path of mysteries and (retronym alert!) "physical books" to bring you a couple of offbeat offerings: a copy of OUTRAGEOUS OLDER WOMAN, my CD of original songs, and a PDF of Shifting Is for the Goyim, my paranormal whodunit novelette.

As Liz Zelvin, I've been singing almost as long as I've been writing, and this collection of urban folk originals with a dash of country, a little gospel, a little klezmer, and a lot of fun and life experience has been simmering in the pot for decades. I'm pretty sure anyone who liked the Sixties will enjoy it.

Paranormal is something new for me. I think you'll like my protagonist, a nice Jewish girl who's also a rising country music star and a shapeshifter. I'm offering the PDF, which you don't need an e-reader to read, because I haven't figured out how to send one of the e-formats as a freebie. If you don't win it, you can get it for almost nothing on Untreed Reads in any digital format you can imagine.

Julia Buckley

I'm offering two readers a copy of my Teddy Thurber mystery The Ghosts of Lovely Women, which has a 5 star ranking in the U.S. and the U.K.  Check it out at Amazon here and be sure to read the reviews. Teddy is a bibliophile who teaches English; she cannot help but become embroiled in the mystery behind the murder of her former student, Jessica Halliday, especially because Jessica seems to have used literature itself to point Teddy toward her killer. This book is currently only available on Kindle, but you won't need a Kindle if you win it--you can get a free reading frame to devour the book on your own P.C.

 

Jeri Westerson

I’m offering a signed hardcover of Troubled Bones. In this fourth in the series, disgraced knight Crispin Guest gets himself into some serious trouble in London and is forced to accept an assignment far out of town. The Archbishop of Canterbury has specifically requested Crispin to investigate a threat against the bones of St. Thomas Becket, which are housed in a shrine in Canterbury Cathedral. But when he arrives at Canterbury, Crispin is accosted by old acquaintance Geoffrey Chaucer, who is traveling with a group of pilgrims. Trapped in Canterbury, looking for a murderer, a hidden heretic, and a solution to the riddle that will allow him to go back home, Crispin Guest finds his considerable wit and intellect taxed to its very limit. “A creative and enthralling retelling of the Canterbury Tales…authentic medieval history combined with modern suspense.” –John Lescroart, bestselling author.

Sheila Connolly

I'm offering a copy of the latest book (#6) in the Orchard Mystery series, Sour Apples, to be released on August 7th.

Rick Sainsbury, Granford hometown football hero turned successful businessman, has decided to run for Congress and to launch his campaign in Granford.  He looks like the perfect candidate--smart, charming, and sincere.  But looks can be deceiving:  when a local dairy farmer dies and the autopsy points to murder, Meg Corey begins to wonder why the farmer died, and her questions lead to some unsettling discoveries that may point a finger at the candidate.

Just how far would a candidate go to win an election?

Sharon Wildwind

I'm giving away the 4th Elizabeth Pepperhawk/Avivah Rosen mystery. If you've been involved in a less-than-stress-free wedding this summer, you'll especially appreciate this book. Benny and Lorraine's problems will put yours in perspective.

Missing, Presumed Wed is about broken promises, false hopes, and the art of redemption.

It’s Memorial Day, 1974. Viet Nam has dropped out of the American consciousness, replaced by Watergate and high gas prices. Viet Nam veterans may be losers, but at least they’re home. Best to forget the war.

Unless you’re an ex-Special Forces Sergeant with a chest full of medals, scars, and nightmares about raising the two sons your dead best friend left behind. Benny Kirkpatrick is one week away from marrying Lorraine Fulford and, as he puts it, “I’ve seen courts martial that required less preparation than this wedding.” Then Benny’s mother, Grace Kirkpatrick, is abducted. Benny and his friends, policewoman Avivah Rosen and former Captain Elizabeth Pepperhawk, put their own romantic entanglements aside to find the killer, but the price of justice may tear Benny’s family apart forever.

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Leave a comment telling us which prize you'd like to win!